The Primary Care Collaborative (PCC) is delighted to name Aisha Pittman, MPH, as our latest Primary Care Champion. Pittman serves as Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS).

To begin the conversation, Pittman discussed her passion toward strengthening high quality whole-person primary care. Through her initial health care quality background in organizations like NCQA and the National Quality Forum, she discovered how payment incentives don’t always align with patient outcomes. She sees accountable care as a critical means to connect payment to results, with primary care as its backbone.

Next, Pittman dug into the impact of the ACO approach. The Medicare Shared Savings Program has shown the ACO model can work, generating more than $34 billion in savings over nearly 15 years. Forgoing the care and reimbursement limitations of fee-for-service, ACOs give care teams more flexibility to use shared savings where they’ll best serve patients. This includes hiring care managers, adding staff, using technology to help patients manage their care at home, providing 24-hour call-line services and other crucial care for a more integrated primary care system.

She then identified several challenges for primary care and described how NAACOS hopes to address them:

• Workforce and payment pressures: As primary care faces workforce challenges, annual cuts under budget-neutral Part B payments and undervaluation, ACOs can help practices make better use of team-based care.
• ACO sustainability: Successful ACOs may have their benchmarks rebased when they recontract, reducing the savings available to sustain services. Pittman called for more stable, longer-term benchmarks.
• Flexible upfront payments: Pittman wants stronger hybrid-payment and capitation options in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, noting that ACO PC Flex had limited uptake and could be restrictive.
• Different practice needs: According to Pittman, practices within an ACO should be able to choose or transition between payment approaches based on readiness and their arrangements with other payers. More upfront funding could support care investments and shared services.

She said these options could provide more upfront funding for practices to invest in care or pool resources for shared services, ultimately increasing investment in primary care.

Finally, Pittman outlined her wish for the expansion of accountable care across the health care system. She wants all traditional Medicare beneficiaries to have an accountable care relationship, through Medicare Advantage or an ACO and more value-based contracts across Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial insurance. According to Pittman, giving practices and clinicians the tools and control to improve care can lead to better outcomes and savings. 

This summary utilized AI tools for drafting support and editing.

Washington, D.C. (September 30, 2026) — The Primary Care Collaborative (PCC), which advocates for better health and wellbeing for all Americans by strengthening primary care, has deepened its health policy expertise with the addition of Katie Comando as Senior Campaign Director and Dr. Sarah G. Candler as the PCC Richard Baron Fellow. 

ABOUT KATIE COMANDO 

Comando will focus on building visibility and awareness of the PCC’s work to unify and engage diverse stakeholders in promoting policies and sharing best practices that encourage the growth of comprehensive, whole-person primary care. 

Comando said, “I’m excited to be part of an organization that has helped advance policies that are essential for better health and wellbeing.  I’m eager to work with the PCC’s Better Health NOW partners to expand the knowledge that access to high-quality primary care can improve health and overtime reduce downstream expensive services.” 

Comando’s career has spanned many areas of federal policy, including the Domestic Policy Council’s Health and Veterans Team as well as the Health Division of the Office of Management and Budget during the Biden and Trump Administrations. She has additional experience with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, as well as the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

ABOUT DR. SARAH CANDLER 

Candler will team with PCC staff to contribute to the organization’s strategy and policy work, including the PCC’s efforts to educate policymakers about the important role primary care plays in improving health. 

Candler remarked, “Throughout my career, I’ve worked to recenter the American health care system on the patient-physician relationship through payment reforms, public transparency and team-based care. Through this exciting new role with the PCC, I look forward to reaching closer to this ever-important goal.” 

Candler is an internal medicine physician specializing in primary care for high-risk older adults. She has dedicated both her practice and her leadership work to improving access to high quality, equitable and affordable primary care for all Americans. 

Ann Greiner, President and CEO of the PCC, noted, “We’re at an important crossroads for advancing the promise of primary care, and both Katie and Sarah’s wealth of experience and knowledge will be critical to helping our team and stakeholders succeed in this exciting environment.”

Three health policy leaders [including PCC President and CEO Ann Greiner] argue that strengthening primary care payment isn’t an attack on specialists — it’s the fix the whole system needs.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed several significant regulatory changes for the next year. As CMS offers a wider embrace of accountable care and technology-enabled care, the evidence remains clear: primary care must be at the center.

On behalf of the Primary Care Collaborative (PCC) and PCC’s Better Health NOW campaign (BHN), we encourage you to read comments below on the CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule.

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The legislation would increase investment in primary care, support the health care workforce and community health centers, lower prescription drug costs, and increase accountability across the health care system.

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The state will allocate the money across eight GROW regions to expand prenatal and postpartum services and modernize rural clinics, creating concern among providers about whether funds will reach hospitals directly.

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Franklin Primary Health Center received $574,091 to establish a rural behavioral health telehealth program serving Baldwin, Choctaw, Conecuh, Escambia and Monroe counties. The organization also received $1.1 million to develop a rural training track within its family medicine residency program to strengthen the pipeline of primary care physicians in Baldwin County.

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There are more than 60 such designations throughout the state based on geographic location and special populations like Medicaid enrollees. The federal agency estimates that New York needs more than 1,989 combined primary care, mental health and dental professionals to remove the designations.

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There’s no easy fix for U.S. healthcare’s severe shortage of primary care providers. However, a few bold strategies could bolster initiatives to rebuild the ranks of PCPs at local, state and regional levels.

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